In this tutorial, we will demonstrate how to open a file in Python using an absolute path. When working with files in Python, it is often required to access files using their complete path, regardless of the directory where the Python script is being executed.

This is particularly useful when you need to read from or write to a file that is located outside the default working directory of your script or application.

We will walk through the simplest approaches to open and read a file using its absolute path, and along the way, we’ll also explain the process of closing the file after reading or writing. As an example, we will use a sample text file containing the following content:

Example Content of sample.txt

This is a sample text file.
Created for the purpose of demonstrating
how to open a file in Python using an absolute path.

Step 1: Import the ‘os’ module

The first step is to import the os module, which provides functionalities for interacting with the operating system, including working with paths and directories.

Step 2: Define the absolute path

We will now define the absolute path of the file that we want to open. This can be done using the os.path.abspath() function, which returns the absolute path of the specified file.

Replace <file_name> with the name of your file, including the file extension.

For our example, the code should look like this:

Step 3: Open the file

Now that we have the absolute path of our file, we will open the file using the open() function built into Python. The open() function receives two arguments: the absolute path of the file and the mode in which we want to open it. Most commonly, “r” stands for “read” mode, “w” for “write” mode, and “a” for “append” mode.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we will be using the read mode “r”.

Step 4: Read the file

After opening the file, we can now read its content using the read() function.

Step 5: Close the file

It is always a good practice to close the file once you are done reading or writing its content. To do this, simply use the close() function.

Now let’s put all the steps together:

Output:

This is a sample text file.
Created for the purpose of demonstrating
how to open a file in Python using an absolute path.

Conclusion

By following this tutorial, you should now be able to open, read, and close a file in Python using its absolute path. This is a helpful skill to have when working with files located outside your script’s working directory or when you need more control over the file’s path.